to see us and to see john. and i said, 'well, where's da?' and she said, 'well, he and the men are down in the corral branding some calves. maybe you'd better go down there and tell him hello.' so after a while, john and i walked down to the corrals, and there was a lot of activity down there. they were branding that day right at the headquarters and had some cattle in the corrals. and there was a lot of dust and swirling around and bawling of the cattle. and they had a branding fire in the middle of one of the corrals. and i knew that my father knew we were there. he had seen the car coming, and he knew we were there, but he never looked over and acknowledged us. and then, finally, he kind of reached up and touched the brim of his hat. and that's kind of the universal sign out in that part of the country that, 'yeah, i know you're there.' so, finally, he said 'come on over. this must be john.' and so he stuck out his hand, and, of course, it was the hand of a working man. it was tough. you shook his hand, it w